Credit Card Debt: It's a Bitch

Where Did It All Go?


Does anyone else here haaate owing money for things, but still can't stop buying worthless things? That's me. I have a condition called Non-Buyers'-Remorse. Basically, I'm never unhappy with crap I buy. It's always fun, and seemingly never a deterrent from the whole "I'll probably hate it in 6 months."

Well my condition has led me to amass a manageable, but larger than I'd like, credit card bill. The average credit card debt per household has been marked at $10,679! We've gotta get out of this mess. Being the super nerd that I am, I built a spreadsheet in Excel to forecast payments and find out how soon I can get my balance to zero. Right now, it's looking like my June 3rd paycheck will do it, but that means I absolutely can't buy any (more) items over $100 or so. I budgeted money for going out on the weekend, though.

After playing around with the budgeted numbers, I found that the June 3 date looked pretty steady as long as I paid 75% of my leftover paycheck after expenses. That means that the main thing killing me was randomly buying shoes/clothes/records when I was bored. I'll be pretty happy to be out of this debt because I saw how much I can save once I'm actually out of debt. Likely only to spend more....

Do you have a bunch of CC debt? What's your best idea to get out of it?

Ebay: You're Too Lazy

Since my roommate has a record player, I thought that it'd be fun to get one myself. Then I can live out my lifelong dream of DJing 2 person parties at home. So i hopped on Ebay, hoping I could find a cheap Technics. I saw a model that I was unfamiliar with, but it was listed at about $30 with 15 minutes to go. Sweet! So I bid on that bitch hoping to get a steal.

Out of nowhere, someone else started bidding too. I was determined to get it at a good price, so I ended up paying $50, which wasn't too bad. After a week, it just came this evening. I turned it on to find that not only was the audio messed up, but it wasn't direct drive as advertised. Super lame. So now I've got to mess with Ebay and ship it back so I can find the right record player.

The moral of the story: Even if you get screwed, it's kind of your fault for looking for such ridiculous deals.

This isn't to say that I won't continue to purchase from such an amazing site...

FYI

When your doctor tells you to get the staples in your head removed in 7 to 10 days, don't wait longer. If you wait 12 days, it will be wildly painful, and you'll curse at the clinic nurse taking them out.

Also, when you switch jobs, you need to sign up/pay for COBRA extended insurance, or you'll have to pay as if you never had insurance.

That is all

This Job Seems Way Better

So I've had this new job for two days now, and it seems a lot better than my previous job. I'm pretty nerdy, so that just means I get to do cooler finance stuff.

Also, I'm dating Mary now. I haven't really had a girlfriend in a while, so I'm not sure what feelings are normal. Mary's a great girl, and I like her, but I don't know if I could say that I'm crazily out of control for her. Is that weird? Or do people grow to become even more attracted to one another after time? For the time being, I think I should be all right, though.

New Year, New Job

Wow, I've got to start posting again. For both myself and you 5 to 7 people out there. Haha.


I've been lightly looking for a job since early November, but hadn't had much luck with Monster.com. It's a good site, but there are just a ton of people looking (as if you needed anyone to tell you that). In mid December I got a call about a company in the suburbs, so I went to interview. Within a week, I had an offer. It should be a good opportunity, so I'm pretty excited about that.

Coffee with Kayla went generally well, but I didn't really feel like our personalities matched. We've randomly chatted since then, but I'd be happier just being friends with her.

Instead, I've been seeing a lot more of Mary from Match. We have a similar sense of humor, and so far it's working out pretty well.

My match.com subscription is now over, so I figure I'll give a short review.
-If you're in match (or another dating site), it's a safe assumption you're not going on a ton of dates. So in this case (either if you're a guy or girl), just try to go on a bunch of them.
-Don't expect every person you email to email you back. Maybe about 10 to 20% will, in which case, you (again, guy or girl) should ask them out. It's online dating. No one cares about gender roles.
-The numbers are much more slanted toward females, but that shouldn't be a big deal.
-I think you get more comfortable "in real life" around people you're interested in.

So if you followed my other posts about match, I guess I kind of take them back. I think I went on about 6 or 7 dates over those 3 months. So for $60, it was worth it. Would I do it again? I don't think so.

It's 2010! Do you do resolutions (or keep them)? What did you do for New Years Eve? I went to Girl Talk and it was wild.

Updates Galore

It's been a while since my last post, but I've been keeping busy.

A Recap:

-The date with Heidi seemed to go well. We met at a not too pretentious wine bar and talked for a while before stopping at a diner for some food. When we parted, I didn't go for a kiss, but instead did one of those one-armed hugs. I thought the date went well, but that's debatable.

-Later that weekend, I figured I'd ask both Heidi and Dana on dates for the week. I got voicemail each time, which wasn't a big deal. I just asked if they wanted to get dinner/drink/etc on said night and to call back. At least one will call back in response to a date, right? Wrong. I still haven't heard back from either.

-Just before Thanksgiving, a coworker asked how online dating was going. I explained to her my lack of dates, so she posited that I'm not asking out enough girls. So given access to my account, my friend proceeded to send the same two sentence email to about 20 girls asking to meet for coffee

-Oddly enough, following a Flosstrodamus show on Black Wednesday (my favorite drinking holiday), I made out with a friend's friend at Debonair. Yes, we were all that drunk, and it's been quite a while since I've done that. The girl, Kayla, is pretty good looking, but we both don't know each other at all. So I'm reserving judgment until we go on a date.



Of the girls my friend asked out for me, I've gone on dates with three so far. One was pretty nice, but I wasn't really feeling it. The other, Mary, seems pretty cool. Our date lasted over 3 hrs, but was good conversation the whole time. I hope she didn't get bored, though. She seemed to have a good time, though, so we switched numbers and I asked her to get dinner Friday. So we're going to do that, which I look forward to.

The third girl was pretty cool, but I think I'd rather just be friends with her.

So that's where I'm sitting now. Tonight I'm getting coffee with Kayla. I'm avoiding drinking, because the last time we drank I ended up staying over. The main thing I'm worried about is if she doesn't realize that we might not be attracted to each other.

Am I Making a Mistake?

"I immediately regret this decision." or Do I?


Today I called Heidi. It had been over a week since I last called, and I'm attracted to her enough that I wanted to see what would happen.

Now in reference to my last post, you may think "I thought you deleted her number." Well, kind of. I deleted the contact, but there were still some text messages lingering around. So like the sap I am, I dug through the history to find her number.

Heidi answered, and after I gave an awkward sounding "So...How've you been?" she said that she got in a fight with a friend; Hence, no volunteering appearance. I think she was trying to insinuate that's why she didn't call back for 10 days also. Heidi threw in a quick "I was actually thinking about you today, and about calling to get a drink." I'm not sure how true this is. Could she just be asking me because she knew that's exactly what I was calling for?

So we're going to grab a drink on Thursday. I'm hoping that I'm wrong about her, and Heidi had a good reason not to call back. I won't find out until then, I guess. I just know that I definitely won't be trying to kiss her this time.

What do you think? Should I just meet up with her this once, but try to forget about her because she should have gotten back to me? Or should I give it a chance with a girl I have feelings for?